Star Trek Links

Friday, September 7, 2012

Google Doodle Celebrates Star Trek's 46th Anniversary

To celebrate the September 8, 1966 premiere of Star Trek, Google posted a Star Trek themed interactive doodle on their home page. After today, the doodle will join the Doodle Gallery. The doodle has three segments to it. The first is the Enterprise bridge crew re-imagined as letters in the word Google. If you hover over certain elements (Uhura, console) you hear classic Trek sounds. Click the elevator takes you to the second doodle in the transporter room. Clicking the bin door in top left reveals tribbles, clicking the red shirt gets him to cry and the console brings you to the final doodle. This last doodle was inspired by the episode "Arena" where Kirk was forced to fight the Gorn on the planet surface. Like in the episode, there are objects on the surface to use against the Gorn. Doodle Team leader Ryan Germick spoke with Star Trek.com about today's homage. Segments below, full interview here.

Tell us about the Trek doodle. What we you aiming for? What were the challenges in basically telling a short visual story with the doodle?Like with all Google doodles, we were aiming to put a smile on people’s faces for a few of seconds before they search. TOS is such awesome source material – the characters, the sets, the sounds, the stories – that the biggest challenge was deciding which details to include.

What elements of Star Trek did you feel had to be captured in order for the doodle to do Trek justice?Star Trek is smart, entertaining, and has an unforgettable style – and it can also be really funny. We tried to stay true to all these qualities that have made generations love the show, while doubling down on the inherently silly nature of the crew gallivanting around as anthropomorphized Google letters.

Take us through the process of how the Trek doodle was done. Is it a team effort? How back and forth was there between Google and CBS?It’s a big team effort. Myself and two other artists worked on this, as well as four engineers. And that doesn’t count folks who helped with sound effects, translations and other support. CBS was great letting us run with the concept. Very cool partners.

Rumor is there's an Easter egg to be found in the Trek doodle. How much truth is there to that?Ha-ha. Well, the entire doodle is basically an Easter egg. You’re not going to get any spoilers out of me, but one thing I will say: no red shirts were harmed in the making of this doodle. Well, maybe harmed a little, but it could’ve been worse!